ACC Champions

Well, what to say… My sincere apologies for my absence of a few months…. I had to clarify some NCAA issues for blogging, but that is all done now and I am back with my weekly updates of Coaching at Maryland, field hockey stuff in general and other stories that I hope will be fun to read for coaches, players, parents and all field hockey fans.

And to get right back into it.. We went 23 and 1 on the season! And that “1″ was came only in the last game of our season – the NCAA Finals! We got through our season without a loss! The first ever undefeated regular season in Maryland Field Hockey history, something to be proud of, but in the end, it is just a statistic.

We started the ACC tournament with a bye in the first round. We watched Wake and Boston College play for a spot against us in the semi final. BC lost and we ended up playing Wake. We had a close game against them during the regular season and Wake and Maryland are always good and exciting games, it is also anybody’s game! We had a comfortable lead halfway through the 2nd half – but nowadays in college field hockey that doesn’t say that much anymore. It became a close game that we ended up winning after Wake just did not have enough power anymore to push for another goal.

The ACC final was a matchup between Maryland and UVA, two very different teams, each with very specific qualities, strengths and weaknesses. It was UVA who took a well deserved 2-0 lead with very well executed corners. We did not anticipate these corner options as we had not seen them before on any video of games earlier that season, and believe me, we watch a lot of video.

We called a time out with just 15 minutes remaining on the clock – something needed to happen, and it did! With a bumped up line up, we have a plan for when we are down and yes we do practice these situations, we got 2 goals back in regular time! It was going to need overtime to decide the 2009 ACC Champion. On the first corner in OT we played a variation from a drag flick into a deflection on the stroke spot height. The ball was slighty changed off direction and ended up behind the goalkeeper, Maryland 3-2 in OT.

Now it is always great to read about these come back victories but what happened that day was special for me! We didn’t play our best hockey and did not create the chances we normally do. During half time, Missy, UMD head coach, talked to our players and just asked them one specific thing; “play as if you have nothing to lose and play from your heart!” The energy that this simple question opened-up along with a different system (more attacking) got us back in the game! We will never be able to measure how much the impact of that half time speech on the team was, but it was incredible and gave us the spark that we needed.

Inspiration and belief are words we coaches use a lot but being able to use them only when needed most, and even more important, using them when your team will accept them is so vital!

Well, winning the ACC, and the way we did it was great!

If you want more inflo including game video – go to the UMD for ACC website.

Next week I will blog about the NCAA Final 4 and our season end, a whole different story…

Tjerk

Tjerk Van Herwaarden
Technical Director, University of Maryland  :::  UMD
Co-Owner, World Camp USA ::: World Camp USA
US Distributor of Princess T14 Hockey Sticks ::: Link